84 Teachings of Thomas Huxley 



the Renaissance philosophers, "It must be ad- 

 mitted, " he says, "that though standing upon 

 the shoulders of the older men, it was a long 

 time before they saw as much as their fore- 

 runners had done." Yet he thought that 

 the movement of modern philosophy is a 

 hopeful one because it is reaching back 

 toward the position of the old lonians 

 and is being clarified and strengthened 

 by sound scientific ideas. "If I publish my 

 criticism on Comte," he once said to his son, 

 "I shall have to rewrite it as a summarv of 

 philosophical ideas from the earliest times. 

 The thread of philosophical development is not 

 on lines usually laid down for it. It goes from 

 Democritus and the rest to the Epicureans and 

 then to the Stoics, who tried to reconcile it 

 with popular theological ideas just as was done 

 by the Christian Fathers." 



If Huxley failed in carrying out so much 

 that he had planned to do upon what must his 

 final claim to greatness rest? There is one 

 thing, at least, that was mentioned in a general 

 way in the introduction to this essay, which 

 entitles him to distinction, and that is the ver- 

 satility of his genius. The fourteen volumes / 

 he has left are monuments of his industry and 

 knowledge, covering as they do such a vast 

 range of subjects. One might ask if he did not 

 attempt almost too much, since it is so difficult 

 to do any one thing really well ) but there stood 



